Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tea Time #1: Buffy vs. Giles

What’s happened before?

We join the Scoobies around television Season 6. The team is still operating out of the high school library. Willow has her Tara. Buffy’s mom, Joyce, is still alive. Xander is engaged to Anya.

Review

The way that Mirka Andolfo sets up Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tea Time is genius. The story structure allows for really fun storytelling with a wide range of plot lines. Overall, the issue could have easily been a television show. I remember the very strong relationship episodes between Giles and Buffy. This one builds on those episodes and gives us something new.

Subplot

Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles are researching a Vampiric Altar, but the research isn’t going very well. The old books aren’t giving the team much to work with.

The Words

Each of the characters in the story sounds like themselves. You’ll easily start reading the dialogue sounding just like the actor from the show.

The Art

There’s two ways to illustrate a comic like Buffy the Vampire Slayer: photo-real or toon. Siya Oum’s style is on the toon/anime side. Buffy, Willow and Xander left me wanting more, but Giles (our focus this issue) was spot on. The action sequences are dynamic, and camera angles on the talking-heads panels varied. There are several full page images that bring a lot of power to the storytelling. Eleonora Bruni uses the color palette to clue us into what part of the story we are reading. The vampire sections tend to run in the blue spectrum. The research sections in warmer red and yellow tones.

Themes

Tea time plays on two of Buffy’s long-running themes. First, is Gile’s relationship with Buffy. He’s a strong father figure for a slayer without a father. Second is alternative-history-what-if stories. Where the television series showed us a world with Xander and Willow as vampires, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tea Time gives us a story where the hero, Giles, turns out to be the villain. The dark-mirror concept is always a fun one.  It turns out, Rupert Giles is a scary bad guy with brains, magic, and vampire strength-speed.

Who’s in this Issue?

We have just the core cast in this issue:

• Buffy
• Willow
• Xander
• Giles

Favorite Quote

“I already lost one father… and now I’m losing another one.” — Buffy

Who will like it?

If you enjoyed Buffy, Willow, Xander, or Giles in any medium, buy this issue. It’s a good one.

I need more Buffy and Giles!

The best part of any Buffy comic is you have years of television and comics to dig into. After reading Tea Time, grab your TV remote and watch these Giles-centric episodes.

• Band Candy, Season 3 Episode 6
• The Gift, Season 5 Episode 22
• Doppelgangland, Season 3 Episode 16

For more images from Buffy’s Tea Time, check out Comic Watch’s Sneak Peak.

Nit-pick

Assuming I’ve placed the story in the correct place in the Buffy timeline, I would have liked to see the character designs match closer to Season 6. At this point, the Scoobies were older than they are depicted in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tea Time.